The new chief executive of MediaNews Group, publisher of the Denver Post and …

The new chief executive of MediaNews Group, publisher of the Denver Post and 50 other newspapers, said it was “a dumb idea” for the nation’s second-largest newspaper chain to sign up with copyright troll Righthaven.

The Denver-based publisher’s year-long copyright infringement litigation deal with Righthaven is terminating at month’s end, said John Paton, who replaced Dean Singleton to lead the company on Wednesday.

“The issues about copyright are real,” Paton told Wired.com in a telephone interview. “But the idea that you would hire someone on an—essentially—success fee to run around and sue people at will who may or may not have infringed as a way of protecting yourself... does not reflect how news is created and disseminated in the modern world.

“I come from the idea that it was a dumb idea from the start,” Paton added, noting that Righthaven was informed of the decision to end relations last month.

Paton said if he was MediaNews’ chief a year ago, he likely never would have signed on with Righthaven, which hoped to fix the print media’s financial ills by suing bloggers and website owners for reposting snippets or entire copyrighted articles. Terms of the Righthaven-MediaNews deal grant each side a 50 percent stake in settlements and verdicts.

Three dozen outstanding MediaNews infringement cases over Denver Post material are on hold while a federal judge in Colorado weighs dismissal over MediaNews’ agreement with Righthaven. A decision by US District Judge John Kane of Denver is pending on whether the lawsuits can proceed to the merits of the infringement allegations.

Sara Glines, a MediaNews vice president, said those cases are likely to remain active as Judge Kane weighs whether Righthaven has standing to sue over the Denver Post copyrights.

“It’s more complicated than that because the cases are with Righthaven, and they have control as long as litigation is in process,” Glines wrote in an e-mail. “But our position is that we will not pursue further litigation with Righthaven.”

The legal flap in those copyright cases concerns Righthaven not owning the copyrights it was filing suit over, despite initially saying it did. Instead, MediaNews granted Righthaven permission to sue over the newspaper chain’s content. The deal does not grant Righthaven license to use the content in any other way other than for litigation purposes. The Copyright Act, however, only gives rights holders legal standing to sue on behalf of their own works.

Judges in Las Vegas have been dismissing Righthaven lawsuits left and right over the same standing issue in lawsuits regarding content owned by Las Vegas-based Stephens Media—Righthaven’s first and remaining client—and a major investor in the faltering enterprise.

Righthaven has not filed a new case in two months. Righthaven’s chief executive, Steve Gibson, said in a recent telephone interview it is awaiting appellate rulings on the issues of standing and fair use before pursuing more litigation.

I'm glad they aren't moving forward with more lawsuits, but "It was a dumb idea" rings hollow.

Pretty reasonably, the newspapers didn't like where they ended up based on their own actions. Their lawsuits didn't pan out, and they are now distancing themselves from the mess they created with Rightshaven (essentially, trying to make money by using the P2P lawsuit threat-oriented business model with newspaper copyrights).

"MediaNews granted Righthaven permission to sue over the newspaper chain’s content. The deal does not grant Righthaven license to use the content in any other way other than for litigation purposes. The Copyright Act, however, only gives rights holders legal standing to sue on behalf of their own works."

+++FAST FORWARD+++

* 3 months from now: RightHaven shuts its doors* The internet prematurely celebrates thinking that they've won* 4 months from now: A new company is formed called LeftFortress and its run by the very same people that ran RightHaven* They learn from their mistakes and create new contracts that state that their clients allow them to be rights holders along with them for a set period of time (In name only of course, or maybe they'll even publish a throwaway 2 page magazine bi-yearly)* New lawsuits are filed* Rinse, Cycle, Repeat

Trolls never die, they just get bored and go back under their bridges to stalk girls on facebook. RightHaven will reemerge with a new name or brand or business model and it'll start up all over again.

We need to reform the law so that a take down notice is required before starting a lawsuit. The other poster is correct that Righthaven or an imitator will rise again.

That's actually a very bad idea. In the news business quick access to content is crucial so all someone who is really ripping off their content would have to do is steal it and respond to the takedown notices, who cares if it's taken down 48 hours after it was posted, the damage was already done.

We need to reform the law so that a take down notice is required before starting a lawsuit. The other poster is correct that Righthaven or an imitator will rise again.

That's actually a very bad idea. In the news business quick access to content is crucial so all someone who is really ripping off their content would have to do is steal it and respond to the takedown notices, who cares if it's taken down 48 hours after it was posted, the damage was already done.

Not convincing enough. I still don't see how that motivates being able to sue over a quote you've decided is too long with no attempt whatsoever to notify the person in advance, no matter how obvious it is that he had no malicious intent.

I wouldn't want these idiots running my companies. It seems it took, what, two or three years to discover that their cash grab (extortion) was a bad idea. They should have know that it was a bad (stupid) idea from the start. If you are making a decision and you have to ask a lawyer if it is right or wrong, then it is probably wrong.

We need to reform the law so that a take down notice is required before starting a lawsuit. The other poster is correct that Righthaven or an imitator will rise again.

That's actually a very bad idea. In the news business quick access to content is crucial so all someone who is really ripping off their content would have to do is steal it and respond to the takedown notices, who cares if it's taken down 48 hours after it was posted, the damage was already done.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but none of the Righthaven cases were ones where someone was "ripping off" the content and passing it off their own. Instead, they were where forum users/bloggers posting articles (in whole or part) in forums and blogs and even cited the source. It is somewhat hard to make the case that the publisher actually suffered losses (it is not likely that the readers of the forums/blogs would have even known of the article's existence otherwise) and instead probably actually got more traffic because of it.

what happens to trolls when they get fired? where do they go? so almost sad

somewhat more seriously, the Righthaven folks were probably in this for the 1. the money, 2. the money etcif there is no money to be made then nobody will do this so this series of court rulings is a good thing

We need to reform the law so that a take down notice is required before starting a lawsuit. The other poster is correct that Righthaven or an imitator will rise again.

That's actually a very bad idea. In the news business quick access to content is crucial so all someone who is really ripping off their content would have to do is steal it and respond to the takedown notices, who cares if it's taken down 48 hours after it was posted, the damage was already done.

And picking on bloggers whose only crime was quoting you isn't?

I feel for the newspaper industry, they're really hurting right now, but that doesn't mean they can pull this kind of stuff. There needs to be some way to protect the papers (or what's left of them) that doesn't threaten everyone with lawsuits.

We need to reform the law so that a take down notice is required before starting a lawsuit. The other poster is correct that Righthaven or an imitator will rise again.

That's actually a very bad idea. In the news business quick access to content is crucial so all someone who is really ripping off their content would have to do is steal it and respond to the takedown notices, who cares if it's taken down 48 hours after it was posted, the damage was already done.

And picking on bloggers whose only crime was quoting you isn't?

I feel for the newspaper industry, they're really hurting right now, but that doesn't mean they can pull this kind of stuff. There needs to be some way to protect the papers (or what's left of them) that doesn't threaten everyone with lawsuits.

I wasn't commenting on Righthaven, they deserve to get bashed and to lose in court. I was talking about a basic underlying concept in Copyright law. If an infringer can receive immunity from damages just by stopping the infringing activity when notified then there is little incentive not to harm the copyright holder. Of course this gets much more complicated in the real world where you have things like fair use and noncommercial incidental infringement, but that's why we have a legal system, the judges in multiple jurisdictions have been doing a good job in navigating the balance between the right holders and the public so why screw with the underlying basis in law because of one bad actor who isn't getting very far with their abuse of the system?

I wasn't commenting on Righthaven, they deserve to get bashed and to lose in court. I was talking about a basic underlying concept in Copyright law. If an infringer can receive immunity from damages just by stopping the infringing activity when notified then there is little incentive not to harm the copyright holder. Of course this gets much more complicated in the real world where you have things like fair use and noncommercial incidental infringement, but that's why we have a legal system, the judges in multiple jurisdictions have been doing a good job in navigating the balance between the right holders and the public so why screw with the underlying basis in law because of one bad actor who isn't getting very far with their abuse of the system?

It would be trivially easy to meet a balance in this: Take down notices should absolutely be required before litigation, however, if the same person is issued X takedown notices within Y days, they can be sued as a serial infringer (Ummm, I think there's a term for it, 'using the law for illegal purposes' but I can't remember - "Malfeasance" isn't it...)